On Sun, 22 Aug 1999, Sam Pawlett wrote: > michael wrote: > > > > Let me speculate on the post below. I suspect that corruption is a necessary > > by-product of that sort of development. How much could you make tapping into >market of > > the Indonesian poor. The rich and the middle class would want fancy imported >stuff. > > So, if you are going to be able to round up a bunch of enthusiastic collaborators >with > > imperialist development, don't you have to offer them an opportunity to steal? > > Sam wrote:> > The mainstream accounts of the Asian crisis emphasized corruption or > "crony" capitalism as the key cause in the depressions suffered by > Thailand, Indonesia and S.Korea. This was mostly for ideological reasons > as mainstream pundits cannot accept publicly that instability and > periodic recession/depressions are inherent in the structure of the > capitalism. In itself, I don't think corruption played that important a Sam, I'm not so sure they can't accept it. I get the sense more and more that they are just seen as glitches, inevitable glitches, but glitches that can be overcome and when they are overcome, despite the immediate and heavy price borne by the working class,whether employed or unemployed, all's for the better. With serious threats to capitalism either removed,peripheralized, or incorporated into capitalist circuits of production and trade, well why should pundits be concerned about being a tad more honest about capitalism than in the past? Steve
